


knowing you

by BrenanaBread



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrinette, Awkwardness, F/M, LadyNoir - Freeform, Post-Reveal Pre-Relationship, Reunion, There is a kiss in there, adrienette - Freeform, but like mild, prpr, theyre both uhhhhh how you say....Dumb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:47:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28415607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrenanaBread/pseuds/BrenanaBread
Summary: After dropping their transformations months ago, Marinette and Adrien see each other for the first time after being apart. They've both left too much unsaid and have to work to pick up the pieces of their confused hearts.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 18
Kudos: 118





	knowing you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [emsylcatac](https://archiveofourown.org/users/emsylcatac/gifts).



> Hi Emsy!! I'm your APS Secret Santa! I'm so sorry for being late, I started and scrapped at least four different ideas before this one, I just really wanted to write something you would enjoy. I adore you and you deserve the best gift possible and I really wanted to be able to write something to let you know how much I love and appreciate and care about you. I don't know if that came through, but you are such an amazing and lovely human being and I'm so grateful to know you. I love you to pieces and I hope you have a wonderful end of the year, you deserve nothing but the absolute best <3 <3 <3

Marinette can feel her heart beat wildly in her throat, pulsing and pounding like it’s about to break free. She wipes her sweating palms on her thighs, skin sticking against her jeans and pulling wrinkles in the fabric.

“So…” Adrien taps his fingers against the table. There’s no rhythm, just the incessant taps of a human stuttering to function. “How have you been?”

“Fine.” She twists her fingers in her lap. “How about you?”

“Good. I’m good—Paris is good—great, even! Never better. Everything is, um. Good. Everything’s good.”

“That’s…” her eyes gloss over the table—the salt shaker, the ripped napkin, drops of condensation running down a glass of water, the neat little vase with a tiny, green plant—anywhere but him, “good…”

Before Marinette had left, she’d thought she wouldn’t be able to wait for this day to come. She’d imagined counting down the days until she’d see her parents again, running and jumping into Alya’s arms after so much time apart, hugging Chat Noir so tightly he’d wheeze and joke about how he knew she’d never be able to stay away, seeing Adrien again and vowing to finally clear the air and tell him her feelings. She’d pictured herself mature and confident and certain—knowing exactly what she wants and not afraid to fight for it. But that was all before they’d dropped their transformations and stared at each other slack-jawed and silent just before she’d left for university.

And though they’ve had weekly check-ins so Marinette could make sure Paris wasn’t falling apart without Ladybug, it feels like she’s speaking to him for the first time in decades. And all she can hear is how much better life is without her.

“What do you like here?” she asks, pretending to peruse the menu though her brain can barely tell the squiggles on the page are meant to be words.

“Oh, I’ve never been here before.” His nail clips his fork as he looks around the restaurant like he’s noticing it for the first time since they sat down. “This girl in my class recommended it.”

“Cool. That’s...cool.” She has to remind herself his life extends far past what she knows, but stamping down that bit of insecurity is like pouring water on a grease fire. 

Adrien mutters something indistinguishable but his mouth is pinched, eyebrows furrowed together, and she can’t help the way her stomach drops.

“What was that?” she asks.

“Nothing,” he waves it away with his hand. “We don’t have to stay here if you don’t want to.”

He’s always been a bit too good at reading her. It’s as comforting as it is frustrating. She doesn’t want to stay, but it’s unsettling to know how much he’s in her head, how well he sees her when she wants to be invisible.

“Are you sure?”

The thought of eating makes her stomach roll, but she’s afraid if they leave now they’ll never cut through the tension.

Adrien looks at her like her skin is made of glass—like he can uncover the secrets of the universe if he only knew where to focus. She wonders what she looks like to him.

“Come on,” he stands up, offering his hand and then dropping it back at his side before her brain can even tell her to grab it. “Let’s go.”

“Where are we going?”

“Wherever you’d like.” Adrien throws a few euros on the table and heads towards the door, brushing her side as he passes her, the restaurant too small for them to maintain any significant distance between them.

“Wait, Adrien,” she says, feet planted in place like she’s stuck in quicksand. “I don’t know what I want.”

“That’s okay.” He smiles and she isn’t sure if it’s sad or just empty. “I don’t know either.”

* * *

The first time Adrien sees Marinette after being apart for so long, he feels like he’s finally home. 

Her style has changed and her hair is longer and tossed behind her back, but her eyes are just the same. Their intensity and intelligence haven’t dimmed, the little half-crescent scar just to the right of her nose still crinkles when she squints from the sun, her cheeks still blush red when whipped by the winter wind.

But her smile is different.

She barely looks at him when they sit to eat, eyes darting around the room like she’s searching for an escape. She fidgets in her seat, never noticing the reassuring smiles he sends her way or his look of hurt when she answers him coolly.

“Fine. How about you?”

She’s fine? Every cell in his body has been aching to see her, each message he receives from her is worshipped as a holy text, but she’s been  _ fine _ without him? Fine away from her home and family and friends? He’s the ocean, beckoned and pulled by her gravity, and she’s the moon, staring off into space without him.

“Good,” he lies. He’s lied a lot since she left—about his feelings and how much sleep he’s getting and where he goes when no one can reach him—but he never expected it could come so easily, lying to her. “I’m good—Paris is good—great, even! Never better. Everything is,” he scratches his arm, picking at a scab on his elbow from when he fell jumping off a windowsill without his suit, “um. Good. Everything’s good.”

“That’s good.”

Why is it so difficult to talk to her? This girl he’s shared so many of his secrets with, the girl he’d follow across lifetimes and planes of existence, this girl who owns his entire soul—he suddenly can’t form a coherent thought around?

And when she asks him about the restaurant, why does he have to say something that makes her face fall? Why doesn’t he remember how to joke with her and lighten their spirits, why can’t he have a single thought that doesn’t end in ruin? He can’t help the words that bubble to the surface, popping out of his mouth unbidden.  _ What’s wrong with me? _

The soft sounds of people chatting around them clog his brain and the overhead lights make him feel like he’s shriveling under their glow. It’s too bright, too yellow, too warm, too noisy. The clicks of heels on the ground shatter his thoughts and he’s on his feet before his brain has processed what he’s doing.

“Come on, let’s go.”

“Where are we going?”

_ Out of here _ . Anywhere. A place where he can think and process. Somewhere he doesn’t make a wrong move before he’s even realized what he’s playing. Where his every word doesn’t make her upset and he can remember what it’s like to be her friend once again.

“Wherever you’d like.”

He needs to get out and he hopes she’ll follow.

“Wait, Adrien.” He’s missed hearing his name on her lips. “I don’t know what I want.”

It’s the most reassuring moment of their entire interaction and his heart fills with hope. “That’s okay. I don’t know either.”

* * *

Twenty minutes later, they’re on a roof, sun setting like the burst of flames when a fire is first lit. Warmth coats the sky in brilliant yellows and pinks and reds, bouncing off their faces and painting their suits orange, setting them ablaze.

Ladybug stands in front of him, a hand on her hip, yoyo gripped tightly in her fist.

“I’ve missed this so much,” she says, face turned away from the brightness so she can look through the shadows. “I’ll never forget how beautiful it is up here.”

_ It’s only beautiful because you’re up here,  _ he wants to say. 

“It’s missed you too,” he says instead.

“Paris was just fine without me.”

Maybe  _ Paris _ was, but everything inside?

“That doesn’t mean it missed you any less.”

She turns her head back around to look at him, gaze cloudy like he’s on the precipice of a storm. “Paris? Or something else?”

“Are you asking if I missed you, Ladybug?”

“I missed you,” she shrugs. “We’re friends. I missed my friends.”

He wants to reach out to her, wants to be encircled in her arms in a hug that lets him breathe again by first taking his breath away, but he can’t.

“I missed you,” he whispers, letting the breeze carry his words to her ears like he’s afraid speaking too loudly will make them shatter. “Not a moment went by that I didn’t wish you were here. That you hadn’t left.”

“I did what I had to.”

“I know. I missed you anyway.”

“Chat, please…” Ladybug traps her lower lip between her teeth, biting down hard enough to leave marks when she releases it, red and glassy. “Don’t make this hard.”

The frustration swells in the pit of his stomach. He doesn’t want her to be sad, he’s not trying to be difficult, but he’s an old blanket, unraveling with the pull of a single string.

“I’m not trying to.”

She shakes out her hands, toying with her fingers and picking at the pattern on her suit. “I have to leave again.”

“I know.”

“You know?”

“I knew you staying here would be too good to be true.”

Her shoulders bunch up by her face, tense. “Not everything is about you.”

Why does everything he says come out wrong? He squeezes his eyes shut trying to dispel the prickling behind them, disheveling him further when he looks at her, confused and hurt in front of him. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean? That you blame me for being alone?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then what? What’s with the comments under your breath, the looking right through me, what do you  _ want _ —”

“You were gone!” It feels so freeing to shout. He throws out his arms, fingertips stretched as wide as they can reach, cold air sweeping over him like a balm. “You were gone and I was alone.”

“It’s not like I left for no reason, I didn’t leave to have fun or get away, I left to study! I left for opportunity! I didn’t want to go—I’d never willingly leave my friends and family—my  _ responsibilities _ —behind!”

“I know! I’m not upset with you” he shakes his head, running his hands through his hair, fingers gripping at the strands in frustration. “I want you to be able to follow your dreams and do what you want—I was just sad. And lonely.”

Her hand balls her suit into her fist just over her chest. “I don’t want you to feel alone. I wish it wasn’t my fault.”

“Ladybug,” he places a hand on her shoulder, trying to catch her eyes as she pointedly doesn’t look at him. “You’re not at fault. I’m allowed to be sad, but that doesn’t mean it’s your  _ fault _ .”

“Can you really stand here and say there isn’t any part of you that blames me for it? You  _ should _ . You’re alone because I left.” Her voice cracks. “You _ do _ .”

He holds her tighter, trying to engrave sincerity into every word. “I’d never blame you for it.”

“Then what’s all of this?” she gestures around them vaguely.

“‘All of this’?”

“The—the pretending you know me! Pretending you’re fine and don’t need me! Pretending I don’t matter and Paris is fine without me and the muttering and the—”

“I was doing that for you!”

“ _ How _ is that for me?”

“I don’t want you to feel trapped here! I don’t want to feel like you can’t leave again, like I’m not capable of handling it and you have to stay and—”

“Chat—” her words break and he crumbles into her at first touch.

They crash into each other like lightning hits a tree. Her arms around him are all-consuming, everything in him reaching out to everything in her. Their skin only barely touches—her nose grazing his neck, his cheek parting her bangs and brushing her forehead—but it’s more of a rush than leaping over buildings or falling through the sky.

She sighs against him, warm breath against his jaw and frustrated tears blinked into his skin, rolling down the collar of his suit, incorporating a piece of her with him. They’re putty together, legs giving out, a pile of limbs stacked on top of each other even as they never leave the embrace. His heart stutters under the palm that’s found its way to his chest, her fingers shake beneath his brush, and they fall apart together.

“Chat,” she finally says, voice hoarse and thick with emotion. Her head rests on his shoulder, tilted up so she can see his face, but he’s afraid of looking down. Afraid of seeing her more than in his peripheral vision—afraid of admitting he loves her more than he’s supposed to. “Thank you.”

Processing her words when they’re warm and close and puffed against his skin is its own kind of torture and he’s never been prepared. “What?”

“I don’t thank you enough.”

“You don’t need to thank me.”

“No, I do,” she insists, shifting her body so she can look him in the eyes, no place for him to escape. “I know this situation is hard for you. Doing this all on your own, caring for this city by yourself. I put so much responsibility on you and then just...just walked away. I didn’t mean for it to happen like that.”

His arms tighten around her waist involuntarily, pressing them closer together. “That’s not why it was hard.”

“What?” Ladybug curls her body into his more, like she’s melding them together.

“It was hard because I thought you didn’t want me anymore.”

“What?”

“We...I found out you were you and you found out I’m me and then we…and then nothing. You left and I stayed and that was it.”

“I thought we were doing what was best. You didn’t—you didn’t reach out.”

“You didn’t reach out either.”

“I know.”

“Then what—how—”

“I don’t know,” she buries her face back into his shoulder, her hand leaving its place on his chest to cover her face. “I felt—it was so  _ vulnerable, _ being Marinette with you. And we didn’t talk about it and I didn’t know how you felt and I was leaving and I didn’t know  _ how _ to think about it.”

“But you...you knew how I felt about you. And when we dropped our transformations in front of each other, I felt  _ seen, _ and it was scary and amazing and I thought—I thought I saw something, but then...”

“What did you think you saw?”

His skin grows hot and pink, from the base of his neck up to the tips of his ears. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It  _ does _ .” She twists in his arms so she can face him fully, not dropping her touch but giving space between them so he’s drawn to her eyes. “What did you see?”

“I _thought_ ,” he stresses, “I thought I saw love.”

“I do love you.” Her fingers press into his suit, not to hurt or bruise or claim, but as a reminder. A gentle emphasis, a declaration of sincerity.

“I know, I know,” he shakes his head. “I’m not saying it right. I thought maybe you loved me the way I love you.”

“I do love you.”

“You don’t get it. I’m—I’m still in love with you. I want to be with you.”

“I’m in love with you too.”

“I—you—what?”

“I’m in love with you, Chat Noir—Adrien. I love you. I want to be with you.”

“But you—what?”

He doesn’t know how he meets her in the middle—maybe it’s because he knows every move she’ll make before she even makes it—but they both lean towards each other, arms and legs still a hopeless tangle, bodies still slumped and twisted awkwardly, and their lips touch. It feels like the sun balanced on the horizon, and he doesn’t know if it’s dawn or dusk. 

She’s still going to leave and he’s still going to stay. But her lips are soft and sweet, her breath warm as it flutters across his mouth. The hand that tickles the back of his neck, gently entangling in his hair, sends shivers down his spine. And when he smooths his hands down her back, it’s her comforting weight that presses into his lap.

“What does this mean?” he whispers, not opening his eyes when she presses tiny kisses along his cheeks and nose. “I don’t know what to do.”

She doesn’t answer at first and he thinks she didn’t hear him until she finally says “I don’t know,” her lips lingering against his forehead. “But it’s okay. We don’t have to know.”

“We don’t?”

“No.” She twists a lock of his hair around her finger, tickling the edge of his ear with the ends and smiling at him when he opens his eyes. “I love you. You love me. That’s our story for now.”

“For now?”

“Until the next chapter.”

His fingertips draw mindless patterns against her back and he doesn’t even notice he’s doing it until she tucks herself under his chin and sketches circles and swirls and squiggles on him. “When does that start?”

Ladybug’s nose trails against his pulse as she breathes him in, her thumb tapping its rhythm over his heart.

“Whenever we want.”

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Tumblr @jattendschaton


End file.
